"I fancy that's more how it stands than by being fair," commented Ned, bitterly.
"Well! Isn't that fair?" asked Strong, leaning back in his office chair.
"Is it fair?" returned Ned.
"Well! Why not?"
"How can it be fair? We have nothing and you have everything. All the leases and all the sheep and all the cattle and all the improvements belong to you. We've got to work to live and we can't work except for you. What's the sense of your saying that if we don't like the agreement we needn't take it? We must either break the agreement or take it. That's how we stand."
"Well, what do you object to in it?"
"I don't know what the others object to in it. I know what I object to."
"That's what I want to know."
"Well, for one thing, when I've earned money it's mine. The minute I've shorn a sheep the price of shearing it belongs to me and not to the squatter. It's convenient to agree only to draw pay at certain times, but it's barefaced to deliberately withhold my money weeks after I've earned it, and it's thieving to forfeit wages in case a squatter and I differ as to whether the agreement's been broken or not."
"There ought to be some security that a pastoralist won't be put to loss by his men leaving him at a moment's notice," asserted Strong.